Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. 

From 1983, the British Election Study series continued under a slightly changed name, British General Election Study, directed by Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell and John Curtice, and conducted jointly by Social and Community Planning Research (SCPR - now NatCen Social Research) and Nuffield College Oxford.

Main Topics:

Variables Interest and participation in election campaign; perception of party system; vote; second choice party; reason for voting; 1979 vote; party identification; negative partisanship; attitudes towards party leaders; images of political parties; wide variety of questions on political attitudes and perceptions of where parties stand on political attitudes; importance of issues in influencing vote; mother and father's vote; father's respondent's and spouse's occupation (1970 and 1980 classifications) including Goldthorpe class schema; self-assigned class; trade union membership; car ownership; use of private medicine and education; perception of trends in household income; receipt of state benefit; education and qualifications; religion; ethnic origin; gender; housing tenure; party membership; region; parliamentary constituency; 1981 Census ward code. Measures used replicate some of those used in Butler and Stokes' Political Change in Britain, 1963-70 (SN:33099), British Election Studies, 1974-79 (SN:33066), European Communities Study, 1970 (SN:33050) and the British Social Attitudes Survey, 1983 (SN:1935). A <i>Continuity Guide</i>, obtainable from the Archive, documents these. Occupational data from the British Election Study, 1983 were recoded so as to become comparable with data from the Social Mobility Inquiry, 1972 (SN: 1097). It was hoped that the `splicing ' of the two studies would enable researchers to gain a clear idea of how mobility rates and patterns have changed in Britain over recent decades.

Stratified random cluster

Face-to-face interview